Self-Esteem / Stereohyped

STUDIOUS BLACKS UNDER ATTACK "… black students who study hard are accused of 'acting white' and are ostracised by their peers. Teachers have known this for years, at least anecdotally. [A Harvard economics professor] found a way to measure it. He looked at a large sample of public-school children who were asked to name their friends. To correct for kids exaggerating their own popularity, he counted a friendship as real only if both parties named each other. He found that for white pupils, the higher their grades, the more popular they were. But blacks with good grades had fewer black friends than their mediocre peers. In other words, studiousness is stigmatised among black schoolchildren. It would be hard to imagine a more crippling cultural norm."

19 Responses

A Conversation About Black Self-Esteem

It Ain't Pretty

Because race is just so hot these days, MSNBC hosted a "conversation about race," which aired Friday after Meeting David Wilson. The panelists — Tom Joyner, Michael Eric Dyson, Malaak Compton-Rock, screenwriter Kriss Turner, writer Kevin Powell, columnist Mike Barnicle, Tim Wise, the Director of the Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE), and Rev. Buster Soaries — discussed a number of issues, including self-esteem and self-worth levels in the black community. A hint: they're really, really, really low.

Here's a longish snippet of the conversation, featuring a heartbreaking example of the "doll test," during which black children are asks to assign "good" and "bad" attributes to black and white dolls. You can probably guess what happens. It makes me want to grab every black child I see and tell them they're beautiful and smart and good. But then many of them will turn on the television and flip open a magazine and come to the opposite conclusion.

Years ago, I found my diary from elementary school and laughed over an entry in which I accuse my mother of being racist for not letting me buy one of those life-sized, long-haired Barbie styling heads (which, in hindsight, are creepy toys to begin with) because the store didn't have any black ones. Now I know that I wouldn't let my child buy that weird blond Barbie head — for a variety of reasons — either. Black children need to know they're beautiful, and if the books you read them, the toys you buy them, and the movies they watch don't reinforce that idea, it makes it a lot harder for them to believe it.

Apr 14, 2008 · posted by Lauren Williams, Stereohyped · Link · 26 Responses

Minority Report

• Surely, music video girls help young African American girls with these self-esteem issues everyone's talking about! [LW]

• Innocent Marylanders can sit in jail for a month if they can't afford bail. [BS]

• Decatur, Ga.'s school district, which has been under court supervision for 38 years, has finally been given independence because it has eliminated all vestiges of racial discrimination. Hmmm. [AJC]

• Rihanna says she didn't have a torrid love affair with Josh Hartnett. Boring. [AP]

• Hillary pulls out her black-voter weapon in South Carolina. [NRO]

Dec 18, 2007 · posted by Lauren Williams, Stereohyped · Link · 8 Responses

Mariah Carey Shows Us Something We've Seen Too Much Of Already

There really is something wrong with a 37-year-old woman who wears the skimpiest, ill-fitting clothes in public and enjoys showing as much skin as humanly possible on magazine covers.

Just because you've got it (and there have been times in her career when she has not had it) does not mean you have to flaunt it.

She has one of the most beautiful voices ever. She can afford to put on some clothes.

Aug 21, 2007 · posted by Lauren Williams, Stereohyped · Link · 8 Responses